Chapter 1

A Quiet Life

The day everything changed started out just like any other. I woke up with the sunrise, dressed myself, and rushed downstairs to help Miss Talia with the morning chores. She was getting up there in years, and always ended up needing help with something or other. And I, the strapping young lad that I was, could consistently provide.

Leaping to the bottom of the rickety wooden stairs, I landed with enough force to rattle the whole house. There was no need to worry about the other kids waking up though. I was always the only early riser. Miss Talia, however, heard the racket and poked her head out of the kitchen door at the end of the right-side hall. “Oh, Sebastian!” She sighed in relief. “You gave me a fright.”

“Sorry Miss Talia, just letting you know I’m awake.” I yawned and stretched my arms as I made to join her in preparing breakfast. Before I walked in I could already catch the hearty scent of homemade stew. Still, it smelled like it needed another hour of simmering before it was truly complete. Miss Talia held the door for me as I entered.

She was an incredibly gentle woman. Exactly as one would expect of an orphanage director. She was petite, but with a body kept fit through years of physical labor. I had never screwed up the courage to ask her about her age, but from what I’d heard from visitors over the years, she was at least in her mid-50s. Despite this, she had aged very gracefully. Her tied-back walnut hair was struck through with shocks of silver, and prominent smile lines evinced an abundance of joy in her life. Even with the increasing number of wrinkles, her pale skin never grew spotted or jaundiced. Still, she never gave herself the credit for her longevity. She’d always say, “The gods give me the strength I have, because they know I need it to care for you kids all day!” Considering everything she’d done for all of us, I was not inclined to argue.

Stepping into the modest kitchen, I nearly walked past the brick stove where the large pot of stew sat boiling. I looked underneath to the strong fire doing the work of cooking our food. One that I didn’t start. I frowned. “Miss Talia…” I began, “how many times have I told you to call me when you need a fire?”

“Sebastian…” she retorted, mocking my tone, walking from the door to the cutlery on the wall, “how many times have I told you that I’d be a terrible guardian if I relied on you for everything?” She grabbed a knife from the overhead hooks, held it in one hand, and used the other to heave a sack of potatoes the size of her abdomen over her shoulder.

“It’s not a matter of being a good guardian.” I argued, as I fell into a familiar routine. Miss Talia opened the cinch in the sack, and spilled potatoes onto an adjacent countertop at the end of the room. Meanwhile, I reached up for the cabinets and gripped a medium-sized iron pot by the handle, which I filled half-way with well water from a barrel in the corner. “It’s just a fact that I can get them started quicker, which saves everyone time.” I thought a rather blithe excuse would hide my actual concern for Miss Talia’s advancing age and escalating aches and pains. It didn’t.

I set the pot down on the end of the counter as Miss Talia chuckled to herself. “I’ve lived my whole life without magic so far,” she said, picking up a potato and beginning to peel, “I’m not gonna go soft on myself just ‘cause I’m getting old.”

I took my position next to her and plucked a spud from the pile. Holding it gently in my left hand, I stuck out my right pointer finger, and held it steady. Slowly, I turned the potato around, using the claw at the tip of my finger to peel. It wasn’t as fast as a knife, but the tactile feedback made it more precise. Miss Talia and I peeled in silence for around fifteen minutes, filling the pot with skinned taters, before she suddenly spoke up. “You’ve gotten taller again, Sebastian.”

Had I? I took a second to examine myself. Same pearly skin with the occasional freckle, same pitch-black claws growing from fingers and toes alike. Same curly brown hair which hung just past my ears. I took a glimpse in the reflection of the pot, and saw the same amber eyes as well. With nothing to measure myself against, Miss Talia’s word was all I could go by. “If you say so.”

Without taking her eyes off her work, she casually stated, “You look more like him with each passing day, you know.”

“Who?” I pressed.

“Robert. You act more and more like him too.”

I froze at the mention of the name. Robert was her husband who would help run the orphanage. According to Miss Talia, he was there when I was first found abandoned on the side of the road, cold and alone. For two years, he helped nurse me back to health, until he caught ill with a deadly fever. He passed fourteen years ago, before I could ever form a memory of him. From all her stories about him, I’d have loved to know the man.

I regained my composure, continued to swipe away at a divot in my current potato, and simply asked, “How so?”

“Your attitude.” She chuckled to herself. “Even at your age, where children can’t help but rebel against their parents, you only concern yourself with how you can help. You take as much care of the children as I do. Two more summers and the law will have me pay you for the work you do!” She looked over her shoulder at me, and I met her gaze, her hazel eyes gleaming in the early sunlight entering the window. “Isn’t it stifling? Don’t you want to sleep in on some days? Do you ever even think about sneaking out for a walk in the city at night?”

In truth, I hadn’t. From what I understood, people only did things like that when they didn’t want to be wherever they were. “Not really,” I answered. “I belong here.”

“My sweet child,” she began, her tone consolatory, “Nobody belongs in an orphanage. You remember the promise I made you right? The same one I make for all my children?” She set down her knife and stepped closer, cupping my hand in both of hers. I extended all my fingers, keeping the blade on each one far away. “I will find you a home. A proper one, some day.”

She was always like this. She was incredibly aware of the state her orphanage was in, of how on some nights, there just wasn’t enough food for everyone. Nothing would convince her that a kid couldn’t be worse off than being stuck here, with no parents and no prospects. But up ‘till now, this place was all I’d ever known. And I wasn’t greedy. I shrugged and explained, “I like this one though.”

She lit up like a hearth. “Most parents end up asking themselves ‘Where did I go wrong.’” Her smile was full of pride. “But I, for the life of me, can’t point out where I went so right.” She wrapped me in a warm embrace, still smelling of fresh starch and vegetables. Wary of my claws, I returned the gesture with a looser grip than hers.

After a few seconds, she grabbed one of my shoulders and forced my knees to bend so she could give me a kiss on the cheek, like she’d always done since I was little. Except now that I was nearly a foot taller than her, she had to get on tiptoes to reach. “Such a good boy!” She praised me as she pinched my cheeks, before turning back to her work. I followed suit, rubbing my face as I finished peeling my latest tuber.

Ever since I was old enough to understand my situation, I knew Miss Talia was excessively kind to someone who, on paper at least, didn’t even live here. The orphanage was funded by the Church of Ten, who sent an inspector every month to ensure the building was still sturdy and their money was being well spent. I was always hidden away somewhere on those days, in a cabinet or a trunk. If they knew one of my…”kind,” was living out of their purse, things wouldn’t be pretty. Worse, the amount of money granted was dependent on how many children were being housed. We always had ten children, including myself, our maximum capacity. If my name was ever recorded, that would’ve netted us five hundred more Cinders monthly than we currently received. As it stood, I was nothing more than a placeholder, an invisible cork on our finances, who prospective parents couldn’t even meet with. However, even if I wasn’t a ghost, I’d overheard Miss Talia talking with friends in the past about how often other demibeast children were passed over in other halfway houses, even those funded by the crown. I knew I was destined to age out, and then I’d have to look somewhere for odd jobs or an apprenticeship. Maybe with Mister Herschel down the street? I thought to myself. I’d be pretty useful in a bakery. Not that it mattered right now. I still had two more years to enjoy this.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I grabbed the last potato from Miss Talia and plopped it into the pot. Before she could react, I hoisted it by the handle and rushed it over to the stove, setting it down beside the stew. She finally caught on to what I was doing and made for the flint and steel, but she was already too late. I knelt down and threw open the wrought iron door to the fire box underneath, which fortunately already had plenty of wood loaded inside. I took a deep breath, and felt that familiar swelling sensation as mana gathered in the center of my chest. I cupped my hands around my mouth, pursed my lips, and blew a small stream of flames directly onto the fuel. The fire stuck to the wood like a ravenous wolf to its kill, and instantly began burning healthy and strong. I stood up, closed the fire box, crossed my arms, and wore every ounce of smug satisfaction I felt on my face. “I win.”

Miss Talia, firestriker already in hand, placed her free palm on her hip and returned my smirk. “Yes, you win.” She conceded. “Your prize is getting to wake up everyone else for breakfast. Professor Beaumont has a busy day today, which means lessons will be extra early, and nobody can learn on an empty stomach.” She grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. “Mush!”

“Yes ma’am!” I marched out of the kitchen and back upstairs to the large bunk room where all the kids slept. It took up the entire second floor, but that wasn’t saying much, leaving everyone still fairly cramped. All the light came from the huge window on the far wall, letting in the early morning sun. Two bunk beds and one single bed were lined up side-to-side on each adjacent wall, with just enough space to stand between. Clothes and personal belongings were kept underneath. Everything we owned was old, worn, or both, with all my clothes being altered several times by Miss Talia as I grew, to the point where the patchwork tunic I now wore was on the verge of looking like a burlap sack with holes in it. I didn’t mind though. It was better than nothing.

Everyone else was still fast asleep, five other boys and four girls, each of them younger than me. The oldest besides myself was a boy, Levi, who was twelve years old, but had only been with us for two. He was as silent as the grave at first, never saying a word and refusing to eat. From the little information I could glean, he’d seen his parents die in front of him in some kind of accident. Miss Talia was at her wits end. That is, until I started dragging him with me everywhere. I didn’t expect anything of it, I was just fed up with his constant mopiness, and decided to resort to brute force. It turned out, that was exactly what he needed. Now he was an absolute chatterbox, with an appetite that matched the size of his mouth, and needed no convincing when it came to attending lessons or playing games.

He also liked to play pranks on me now. Just yesterday, he’d set a rock in front of me while I was counting during a game of hide and seek, making me kiss the cobbles as soon as I opened my eyes. How did I know it was him? Because it was always him. And now I had a chance for revenge.

Levi slept directly across the room from me in the only other single bed, both of which were always claimed by the two oldest children. As quietly as I could (which was not very), I crept up to Levi’s bedside, wincing at every creaky floorboard. Luckily, he was a deep sleeper, and didn’t so much as stir as I stood directly above him. Snickering to myself, I bent down, getting as close as I could to his face, before opening my jaw as wide as I could and bearing all of my teeth. Wickedly sharp, dagger-pointed teeth are just part and parcel of being a demi-dragon, and I was never under any illusions about how frightening they looked. Holding my position, I gently shook Levi on the shoulder.

He groaned softly and squeezed his eyes shut tighter for a moment, before they eventually fluttered open ever so slightly. After a split second of processing the half-awake glimpse he’d caught, his eyes snapped open and he screamed, in a voice as cracked as a donkey’s ass, “DEAR GODS!” He catapulted himself out of bed and away from me, nearly flinging himself directly into my fangs, before he landed on the floor with an explosive Thud!

I would've joined him tout de suite as I succumbed to peels of uproarious laughter, had I not caught myself on the far wall behind me. Everyone else was stirring to consciousness thanks to the noise. The girl on the top bunk next to Levi’s bed, nine year old Ava, sat up and asked through a groggy haze, “What’s going on?”

Levi was quick to point at me, still in the middle of a giggle fit, and yelled, “He was gonna bite my face off!”

I choked back the rest of my hollers and gasped with as much hammed-up offense as I could. “I’m not some barbarian!” I cried. “I mean, who eats raw face! Obviously I was going to cook it first!”

Ava, and her twin sister Anna below her, both cracked up as the pillow Levi hurled at my head struck true. It wasn’t hard to dodge or anything, I just decided to give him an early-morning win. Everyone was up now and getting on with their morning routine, forcing me to shimmy past and back to the staircase so I could help set the table. Just as I was about to step down, however, I felt a small tug on the hem of my tunic. I looked down to my right and saw Conner, the youngest of us, pulling at me, beckoning me to his level. At just six years old he was still quite short, forcing me onto one knee in order to bring my face level with his. “How can I help you little man?”

His icy blue eyes stared into my soul as he asked, “Big brother Seb, are you mean?”

The question caught me so off guard it felt like my brain had done a somersault. My jaw hung open uselessly as I ran through all the implications behind what this six year-old had just asked me. Was he under the impression that I was mean and he was asking for confirmation? If so, what had I done that led him to believe I was mean? Was it what I just did to Levi? Of course that would look mean to someone Conner’s age, he was still too young to pick up on social nuances. But he hadn’t seen that, had he? He was on the opposite end of the room! I started rewinding through all my memories with Conner, back to when he first got here a month ago, when mercifully Conner’s bunkmate, eight year old Langley, spoke up from nearby.

“Father O’Neil has been preaching sermons again,” he explained, “Running his mouth about how savage and violent the ‘half-men’ are. Some of it must’ve stuck with him.”

Ah, now it made sense. Once a week, Miss Talia took the rest of the children to church for the morning service, while I stayed behind to clean and hold down the fort. From what I’d heard, some of the priests were especially hateful toward demibeasts, Father O’Neil being one of them. I sighed, and turned my head to address Conner. “Conner,” I started, keeping an even but firm tone, “Do you remember Professor Beaumont’s lesson on the difference between facts and opinions?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, everything Father O’Neil says in church is his own opinion. He thinks that people can be mean, just because they look different from him and can do things he can’t.” I placed both hands on his shoulders. “But he’s wrong. People can only be mean or nice based on the things they do. Have I ever been mean to you?”

He looked at his feet. “No.”

“Then am I mean?”

He shook his head lightly. I felt his shoulders start rising and falling in a gentle, but erratic pattern, and realized I might’ve been a bit too hard on him. He was sensitive, even for his age, and started sobbing at even a light scolding. I pulled him into a hug and let him cry into my shoulder for a good minute before he calmed down and pulled himself away. I asked, “Would a mean person do that?”

“Yeah!” A girl's voice yelled behind me, making me and Conner jump, before a hand reached over my shoulder and ruffled Conner’s hair. “Sebastian is the best, and never let anyone tell you otherwise!”

I swiveled my head over my shoulder and saw that Patricia had snuck up on me without a single sound. She’d been here for almost a year, brought in just after her tenth birthday, but had only recently started singing that tune. She thought I was evil incarnate until just two weeks ago, when she caught a horrendous illness with a full-body rash and a cough like so many dying cats. I volunteered for bedside duty, spoon feeding her and keeping her warming pan lit for nine days until she fully recovered. That was enough to make her my first, and hopefully only, zealot. It was slightly off-putting how quickly she swapped sides, but I didn’t complain. As long as she didn’t hate me for existing.

I looked around the room and saw that everyone was dressed and ready for the day, so I stood back up and prepared to lead them all downstairs. But before I could take the first step down, a thunderous noise started from the bottom of the stairwell, and grew louder and closer with each second.

My blood froze. Miss Talia didn’t have the energy to run up a flight of stairs like that anymore. I held out an arm and backed away from the steps, yelling “Stay back!” behind me. A thief? I thought, Or some other crazy? Regardless, they’re getting turned to char! I started building up flame in the back of my mouth, parting my lips slightly to let excess heat and smoke pour out. As the noise approached its apex, I backed up even farther, herding the children behind me, and opened my jaw wide, releasing a geyser of fiery retribution upon…Professor Beaumont?!

I instantly whipped my head up toward the ceiling, allowing only a small puff of flame to escape before I slammed my mouth shut, forcing the rest to suffocate in my throat and the mana to disperse back into my body. Have you ever sneezed and coughed at the same time? Imagine that, but an order of magnitude more painful.

I screamed internally as Professor Beaumont, a mousy woman in her mid-twenties with short, auburn hair tied back in a bun and thin-rimmed spectacles resting on her nose, caught her breath at the top of the stairs. I didn’t know much about her, save that she always had her face buried in some tome or another whenever she wasn’t teaching on any subject you could think of. She was incredibly bright, having studied at the top school in Cindrune, and was working on becoming an advisor to the crown. She taught lessons at the orphanage every other day on every subject, from Common, to biology, to arithmetic, for an incredibly modest price.

All this to say, she wasn’t very athletic.

Hands on her knees, she sucked in breaths like starting tomorrow it would cost a Cinder each. Her eyes were wide and panicked, like she knew something terrible was about to happen. Before I could ask what was wrong, she squeaked out between labored heaves, “Sebastian…” She coughed twice. “The church is here. Hide!”